chapter 6: (last verse) the texture of you by my side

Mercedes hummed along as she sifted flour, salt, and baking soda, Mariah's Always Be My Baby softly playing in the background. It was one of twenty amazing songs that had made it into her favorites playlist. She shimmied her hips as the track started in on its hook, the melody and beat flowing vivid through her as she went on to mix eggs and milk. Thankfully Sam was serious about his cooking both in and out of Delfino, so she had been able to find even the most unusual ingredient to round up her mother's recipe for simple pancakes, which was orange blossom water. Some lemon zest, brown sugar, and cinnamon would add other tasty shades to their breakfast.

She continued mixing ingredients and swaying her hips to the rhythm past the moment she heard the door open, Sam's footsteps following.

Smile perfectly spiked with warm flirtation, she turned her head when the footsteps stopped.

Sam was bare except for loose pajama bottoms hanging low on his hips, hair arranged into the most catastrophically endearing mess of bedhead. "Everything you brought to wear here was meant to have me want to strip it off you in under .05 seconds, wasn't it?"

She was wearing a burgundy negligee with delicate lace that dipped pretty low down her front. The lace detail was also sewn along the hem brushing her skin just past mid–thigh. "I did come here on a mission, Sam."

"A mission to come get yo man, " Sam elaborated like a total dork, waggling his eyebrows at her. Laughing, she turned away so she could reach for the orange blossom water. "Wait… wait. Did you, when you woke up… Mercedes, did you walk naked from the bedroom almost to the apartment's entrance?"

Three and a half drops of the clear liquid onto the batter. Mercedes' skin had gone hotter than lava. "Yes," she confessed, her voice barely above a whisper.

"And I was asleep for this?... How come I was asleep for this?" Sam asked, coming into the kitchen and wasting no time in putting his arms around her. He kissed her neck, breathing her in. "You could've woken me up," he told her. He didn't sound accusing, just… somewhat apprehensive around his relaxed, strong edges.

Mercedes reached up to touch him for a beat, the sensitive column of his neck. "I know, but you looked really deep under, Sam, and I…I — sort of wanted to be alone for a little while. To process things."

Sam pulled her flush against his body, squeezing her. "Did your soul searching lead to good places?" he asked, his voice telling because of how carefully even he kept it.

Mercedes turned around in his embrace, pushing him gently back so that she could look at him as she talked. She needed to do that for what was coming. "I'm making pancakes from scratch wearing a sexy negligee, so the answer's not really a mystery, is it?" she said, keeping her tone light so that it remained clear that she was joking around. She knew what Sam was really asking about, though, so she added, — "I'm certain that my decision to wait to have sex was the right one for me. I'm also deeply certain that my decision to not wait until our wedding ceremony was the right one for me, too. I... love my mother dearly and I know her well enough to be certain it'll easily be close to a year for the kind of wedding she'll feel content with for her beloved baby girl. I've felt just…— really intensely sexually aware for over two years now, which was why I decided to start in on the oral contraception. I decided then that I'd definitely wait until I'd fallen truly in love with someone and marriage was at least a real possibility."

Sam was nodding as she talked, the expression caught in his stare bordering on solemn.

Putting her arms around him, silently guiding him to swoop down, she gave him a paced, thorough kiss. As they separated she stole back in and sucked down on his bottom lip before biting slightly, and said, — "And now ... — I am truly in love. Deeply in love… and marriage is the most likely outcome."

"Are you so in love that you even like the kind of modest ring?" Sam asked, resting his forehead against hers. He sounded insecure about the subject. She hated to hear that in his tone.

"I love my ring," she told him sincerely, hoping to ease his fears. It was beautiful: a basket setting with lovely clarity, elegant and different. "How did you get this, Sam?" Sam was reasonably well paid as a sous - chef at Delfino, but he would've surely needed to tap into savings to get the money for the lovely ring she was wearing.

He kissed the tip of her nose, making her giggle, which, in turn, earned Mercedes a low groan from Sam. She would have to remember to use her giggle powers wisely in the future for they truly seemed to be mighty impressive. "Simple. I was planning on inviting you on a trip to Hawaii, so I was saving up for that. But instead I got you this," he explained as, reaching up behind himself for for her hand, he traced his thumb gently over the band and her skin.

"A - ha. So we were on the same wavelength, then? You were also planning to go get yo woman? With the trip to Hawaii, I mean." She gave him a grin that was too wide, too transparently smitten. Another fraction of an instant and Mercedes had dropped her hands lower so that she could unabashedly grab his ass.

Sam inhaled sharply, and Mercedes wanted to come out of her skin with how much she loved him, how much she wanted him. It was her turn to inhale audibly when Sam moved so that he was tracing lazy patterns just below Mercedes' breasts. "Would you believe it if I said that I was so used to being in love with you by that point that I wouldn't have made a move unless you gave me a very clear signal that it was what you wanted me to do?"

Mercedes swallowed when, palming her breasts, he brushed his thumb over her nipple. The air felt too charged, too lit with everything between them. "And then I told you I wrote you a song." Her voice was breathy, thin.

"Which filled me with enough hope that I bypassed Hawaii and wound up in the jewelry section in a hot second, yes," said Sam, and then he was kissing her neck, teeth pressing in just right above as, below, he flicked over her nipple once again, the action successfully drawing a low moan from her. His voice too deep, too darkly knowing, he said, — "D'you know what's really good for pancake batter?"

Mercedes turned her face so that she could catch that mouth of his, gave him a kiss that was all slow seduction and building heat. She caressed his neck as they separated. "I know almost every secret to pancakes, so let me beat you to the punch, Sam: it's really good for pancake batter when you let it sit for a while." Half-spinning on her heels, she reached for a paper towel and covered the bowl with the batter. She went on to half - spin again before popping up a challenging eyebrow at Sam.

He chuckled, fingertips lingering over her wrists before he took hold of her hands, lacing their fingers together. He pulled her forwards as he took a step backwards, his green eyes sparky affection and blunt, stormy want. "You've got that exactly right, Mercedes," he said.

Somehow his voice promised about a hundred different things.

She wanted him to follow through on every single one of them.

Past the sudden thick haze, Mercedes noticed that Turn Your Lights Down Low had started playing, and she grinned as she followed Sam towards the bedroom. Turn Your Lights Down Low had the best rhythm for any sort of physical activity, and, also, she thought it was sweet that they were back to Lauryn Hill like when they'd first been secretly together in Lima, when they'd get up to making out in her car with the music on. Mercedes wished it was some sort of sign from above that this was how it'd always go for her and Sam: life continuing to unwind before them and they always coming back to each other, the beat between them carrying them through rough edges and mellow curves, highs and lows and every variation of muted gray, what was between them the best sort of soundtrack for the rest of the bittersweet craziness.

Mercedes leaned forward and hugged Sam's waist from behind, shaping a lingering kiss below his shoulder blade, and then her teeth pressing. As Sam turned and drew her into a gravity shifting mouth to mouth, hands memorizing her some more as Mercedes melted into a sigh... — that they loved each other enough to make the universe take a turn for the sort of generosity that starts dishing out signs did not feel like the kind of hope she'd pin to a birthday candle, but instead like something more authentic and stronger than that, like a very distinct possibility riding over the sincerest, most desperate prayer.

~the end~